I lay down on my bed and read a book in the dimness of a rainy day. At this time of year, it is still bright outside even when it is nearly 6:00 p.m. Even on a day like today, when the sky is covered with gray clouds, if the curtains are open, there is a vague brightness.

About 30 minutes after I returned to my room, there was a light knock at my door.

I got up, tucking a bookmark into my book. The tapping sound was a bit new to me because my mother always called out loudly when she needed me, without knocking.

"What?"

I said so and turned to the door and heard Izumi's voice saying, "It's dinner time, come downstairs."

"OK, I'm going now."

I got up and opened the door. Then I went down the stairs with Izumi who came to call me and entered the living room. On the table were prepared foods that my mother had bought. The menu was much more luxurious than usual. My mother likes to make things lively, so she must have been very excited about Izumi's arrival.

Izumi and my mother sat facing each other at the table for four, and I sat beside her. The TV was playing the evening news. A fresh-looking male announcer with waxed hair was reading the news, but I could hardly hear his voice because it was drowned out by the conversation between my mother and Izumi.

"Tomoko is really sudden, isn't she? I can't believe she's going to Brazil. She's always like that. Even when we were a student, all of our friends were so busy being pushed around by her."

"My mother is a workaholic."

"That said, I wonder if I would leave my high schooler child and go to the other side of the world normally."

"Apparently, it was a huge business opportunity."

"New coffee beans, huh? I wonder if it is really profitable to import them.

"My mother says it tastes very good."

They exchanged such conversations at a high tempo. My mother seemed to get along well with Izumi, perhaps because she was a relative and the daughter of her best friend. They talked about Izumi's parents and her school, and kept getting into a lively conversation throughout the meal.

I was quietly eating my meal besides them, listening to their conversation from right to left.

After finishing my meal in about 10 minutes, I poured myself a cup of barley tea and was drinking it when I felt a vibration in my pocket. When I took out my phone and saw an incoming message on SNS. It was from my brother.

《I'm sure you've already finished with that girl's moving, right? Come over to my place and tell me all about it.》

As usual, the message was written in a crude Japanese that one would not expect from a graduate student in the humanities. And although I thought to myself, "I wish you could just come over here yourself," I quickly responded, 《Okay. I'll be there later,》.

"Thanks for the food."

I sat up and washed my own dishes in the sink. Then I was about to leave the living room to go back to my room, thinking I would just take my wallet. Then,

"Kenichi, are you going somewhere?" my mother asked.

"Ryuu's place. I got called out for something."

I stopped and answered.

"It's not for something strange, isn't it?"

My mother said with a wary look on her face.

"It's not like that. 'Come and play with me, you're not busy, are you?' he said."

My mother let out a deliberate sigh.

"Tell Ryuichi that I've already accepted his offer to go to graduate school and that he should come home once in a while."

"Okay."

Izumi listened to our conversation with a puzzled expression on her face. Then, perhaps sensing that I was about to leave the house, she stopped me and said, "Kenichi-kun,"

What? I reacted naturally, and then, after a pause, I felt uncomfortable.

---Kenichi-kun?.

When I was puzzled by the fact that she called me by my name,

"Oh, um, there's aunty, too, and I thought it would be weird to call you Sakamoto-kun."

Izumi said as if in excuse. I said, "Yeah, well, it's true," and throw appropriate words.

"Thank you for today. You helped me a lot."

Sitting in her chair, bowing as if folding her upper body, Izumi said. Even though she was a relative, being called by name by a girl I had almost never met before made me feel embarrassed or perhaps strangely fidgety.

"No, it's nothing, I didn't have anything more to do today anyway..."

Saying this, I gave a small nod back to Izumi. Izumi kept her lips closed and laughed, lifting her cheek softly.